[VEKN] Official Nosferatu Newsletter for Sept1998

VEKN Nosferatu Newsletter, Sept 1st 1998 I figured that I'd continue to examine the set of Nosferatu vampires that I started a few months back with a look at the Nosferatu from the first two expansion sets-Dark Soverigns and Ancient Hearts. The expansion set Nosferatu tend to have weird discipline combinations (like most expansion vampires), and as such tend to be kind of difficult to combine into most standard Nosferatu strategies. Dalyiah***: With the combination of PRO and obf, Dalyiah doesn't have much place in any standard Nosferatu deck, but she can find a home in multiple other weird deck types. She certainly would be useful in any all Protean deck, and there are various weird Pro/Obf/Dom decks that can be built where she will be appreciated. Nikolaus Ver Mullen*****: As opposed to the rest of the expansion Nosferatu, Nikolaus is a powerhouse of utility. He has a good standard Nosferatu discipline spread of POT, obf, ani, and for combined with a really good special. Add to this that he is a Prince, and you have a vampire that will see a lot of use. Any Nosferatu deck that doesn't mind using a 7 pointer can benefit from his abilites, and he is a no brainer for any Pot/For combat deck. Amadeo**: As an 8 point Primogen with a weird discipline combination, Amadeo doesn't see much use. Sure, he has POT and OBF, but so does Selma, and she is a Prince with fortitude. His special ability of a built in feeding razor is handy, but certainly not worth including him in a deck just because of it. All he has going for him is his cool picture and oddly placed presence, which might find use in some bizzare stealth vote deck (one of which I'll post next month...). That, and he can hang out with Harrod. Harrod*: Far and away, the worst of the IC members. His discipline selection is nothing special and his ability is a joke. Sure, Gwendolyn doesn't even have a special, but at least she has noteriety in that she is one of only two vampires who have POT and FOR, and she's cute. In what way is his special useful? By the time I have an IC member out, why will I need to spy on my opponents uncontrolled vampires? Anyone find any clever use for this? Sad. Regillio-Seeker of Akhnatten***: A fairly generic 3 point vampire that might find use in a Malkavian deck for his obf and aus, or a Nosferatu weenie deck (or any obf weenie deck). He gets points for being a "fill in the basic discipline combinations" vampire (like Razyia and Panagos), but loses some on his lame picture. Laurent de Valois***: Another pretty generic vampire with a slightly odd but possibly utilitarian combo of disciplines. There is always room for Laurent in any Malkavian S+B deck or a "Nosferatu with Dom" deck, but generally not a real stand out. Another cool picture, though. Judah**: I always want to use Judah, as he seems like such a cool guy, _and_ he is a 6 point Primogen, but his discipline spread is just too weak. His noteriety as the youngest Nosferatu with POT was rendered moot with the advent of the !Nos, and while he can get some mileage in some Pot and Dom Bruise+Bleed or Pot and Ani Dotb/IG deck, there is probably always someone better to replace him with in a crypt. Had he come with obf (as he probably should have, as he is a point overcosted), he would have been fairly useful in a good Nosferatu Pot/Obf Rush deck. Murat***: He (yes, I realize that there is question as to Murat's gender...) has a somewhat soft discipline spread for a 7, having only POT, OBF, and ser, but having POT and OBF is respectable, especially when 8 point Selma has the same superiors. If you need a Prince with only POT and/or OBF however, Murat is the way to go. His special is fairly useless, and it seems unlikely that anyone will ever get much use out of his serpentis. I keep toying with the idea of throwing him in my Pot/Pbf Rush deck (both a superior and a Prince for diablere defense), but the fact that he is a 7 makes him a bit too expensive. Peter D Bakija PD...@aol.com "The Bomb, Dimitri. The Hydrogen Bomb." -The President

PDB6 wrote: > > VEKN Nosferatu Newsletter, Sept 1st 1998 > [snip] > Nikolaus Ver Mullen*****: As opposed to the rest of the expansion Nosferatu, > Nikolaus is a powerhouse of utility. He has a good standard Nosferatu > discipline spread of POT, obf, ani, and for combined with a really good > special. Add to this that he is a Prince, and you have a vampire that will see > a lot of use. Any Nosferatu deck that doesn't mind using a 7 pointer can > benefit from his abilites, and he is a no brainer for any Pot/For combat deck. I wanted to comment here about the utility of larger vampires in a rush deck. I found at GenCon that there were a number of people who had specific anti-weenie sentiment/strategies. One particular disruption deck killed me because it was specifically designed to thwart little vampires, of which my crypt mostly consisted. Also, larger vampires are a little tougher, in that they can take a medium-sized hit and survive to Taste and Decapitate. Since putting a number of vampires sized 5-7 in my crypt (while only slightly increasing the avg. capacity) I've found my deck is a lot more consistent. But, as always, YMMV. > Amadeo**: As an 8 point Primogen with a weird discipline combination, Amadeo > doesn't see much use. Sure, he has POT and OBF, but so does Selma, and she is > a Prince with fortitude. His special ability of a built in feeding razor is > handy, but certainly not worth including him in a deck just because of it. All > he has going for him is his cool picture and oddly placed presence, which might > find use in some bizzare stealth vote deck (one of which I'll post next > month...). That, and he can hang out with Harrod. There's always the Obf/Pre "Whoever wanted to be a stinking Malkavian, anyway?" deck. But that tends to want littler vampires who are more expendable. > Harrod*: [snip] > In what way is his special > useful? By the time I have an IC member out, why will I need to spy on my > opponents uncontrolled vampires? Anyone find any clever use for this? Sad. Yeah... and Nosferatu Hosting? What were they thinking? > Judah**: I always want to use Judah, as he seems like such a cool guy, _and_ > he is a 6 point Primogen, but his discipline spread is just too weak. His > noteriety as the youngest Nosferatu with POT was rendered moot with the advent > of the !Nos, and while he can get some mileage in some Pot and Dom Bruise+Bleed > or Pot and Ani Dotb/IG deck, there is probably always someone better to replace > him with in a crypt. Did you use him in The Deck That Only Works When You Get Out Marty Lechtansi? It seems like Pot/Ani/Dom is a doable combo; you have Pot for fighting, Ani for maneuvers (sort of: DotB), and Dom for deflecting and the occasional Conditioning. But I guess The Deck would still Only Work When You Got Out Marty Lechtansi (or Judah). > Murat***: [snip] > I keep toying with the > idea of throwing him in my Pot/Pbf Rush deck (both a superior and a Prince for > diablere defense), but the fact that he is a 7 makes him a bit too expensive. I'm telling you: having bigger vampires is not a bad thing. I put Volker into my Brujah deck's crypt, and those two votes let me diablerize at will (once I had killed all the voters... heh, heh, heh). I'm sure you've thought of this, but is there any other angle you can exploit with superior Obfuscate? Another random thought slightly related to the Nosferatu: are there enough Nossies (or others) with Obf and For? I had an idea for an all Spying Mission / Force of Will deck. Does a Spying Mission (where you cancel the bleed and just get the +1 option) action count as a bleed for the purposes of NRA? If so, maybe the deck would have Inverrarys, Scotland; you take an action to pump up your bleed or go buy a Laptop, or a +1 bleed retainer, and bleed for lots at stealth. Actually, this sounds like a decent idea for the Gangrel, with Movement of the Slow Body and Rapid Healing to keep out of torpor, and Protean stealth and Fortitude unblockability to get the bleeds through. Hmm... comments? James -- James Hamblin ham...@math.wisc.edu Official Jyhad/V:tES FAQ Maintainer http://www.math.wisc.edu/~hamblin/faq.html "We _do_ kill people... that's sort of our raison d'etre" -- Spike

In article <35EB722D...@math.wisc.edu>, James Hamblin <ham...@math.wisc.edu> wrote: > >I wanted to comment here about the utility of larger vampires in a rush >deck. I found at GenCon that there were a number of people who had >specific anti-weenie sentiment/strategies. One particular disruption >deck killed me because it was specifically designed to thwart little >vampires, of which my crypt mostly consisted. Also, larger vampires are >a little tougher, in that they can take a medium-sized hit and survive >to Taste and Decapitate. Since putting a number of vampires sized 5-7 >in my crypt (while only slightly increasing the avg. capacity) I've >found my deck is a lot more consistent. But, as always, YMMV. I'm curious. What specific anti weenie strategies do people use? The only thing I can really think of is obedience. -- /\ Jasper Phillips /VVVVVVVVVVVVVV|~"~"~"~"~"~"----------........____ jaz j^^^^^^^^^^^^^\/"~"~"~"~-----------........._____ ~"~--. * http://www.engr.orst.edu/~philljas/ "~"~'--`

James Hamblin wrote: > [snip] > Spying Mission / Force of Will deck. Does a Spying Mission (where you > cancel the bleed and just get the +1 option) action count as a bleed for > the purposes of NRA? Yes. Spying Mission doesn't cancel the bleed. It replaces the "remove pool" part of a successful bleed with its own effect. -- L. Scott Johnson (vte...@wizards.com) VTES Net.Rep for Wizards of the Coast. Searchable database of official card text, errata, and rulings: http://deckserver.net/cgi-deckserver/rulemonger.cgi/powersearch

Jasper Phillips wrote: > > I'm curious. What specific anti weenie strategies do people use? The > only thing I can really think of is obedience. Obedience, Charnas, Society of Leopold, Cryptic Mission... some of these things work on bigger vampires, too, of course, but they work 'specially well on weenies. It was a good deck. [ quoted text not captured ]

Jasper Phillips wrote: > In article <35EB722D...@math.wisc.edu>, > James Hamblin <ham...@math.wisc.edu> wrote: > > > >I wanted to comment here about the utility of larger vampires in a rush > >deck. I found at GenCon that there were a number of people who had > >specific anti-weenie sentiment/strategies. One particular disruption > >deck killed me because it was specifically designed to thwart little > >vampires, of which my crypt mostly consisted. Also, larger vampires are > >a little tougher, in that they can take a medium-sized hit and survive > >to Taste and Decapitate. Since putting a number of vampires sized 5-7 > >in my crypt (while only slightly increasing the avg. capacity) I've > >found my deck is a lot more consistent. But, as always, YMMV. > > I'm curious. What specific anti weenie strategies do people use? The > only thing I can really think of is obedience. > And the #1 answer is....ATTONEMENT Particularly on a well equiped minion.

James Hamblin wrote: "Since putting a number of vampires sized 5-7 in my crypt (while only slightly increasing the avg. capacity) I've found my deck is a lot more consistent. But, as always, YMMV." All of the larger vampire sentiments are perfectly valid, but I suspect that such an anti-weenie deck is pretty few and far between. Not to say that it isn't worth having a few larger vamps just in case, but in almost every situation, I would rather have out Olivia and Duck than Murat. "Did you use him in The Deck That Only Works When You Get Out Marty Lechtansi? It seems like Pot/Ani/Dom is a doable combo; you have Pot for fighting, Ani for maneuvers (sort of: DotB), and Dom for deflecting and the occasional Conditioning. But I guess The Deck would still Only Work When You Got Out Marty Lechtansi (or Judah)." Yeah. I think I even played 2 of him. Pot/Ani/Dom was a good combo, as you got to benefit from the horrific combo of DotB and IG, as well as having good bleed abilities and Deflections. However, that particular deck was very sketchy, in that all of the vampires were HUGE, and as you pointed out in some other thread, the Minion Taps didn't really make it any eaiser to play with them. And, it was partially a Bruise+Bleed deck, which has plenty of problems in and of itself. I usually would spend, like 15 pool on 2 vampires, which takes too long and doesn't get me anywhere real fast in the long run. It was a fun deck, and occasionally effective, but in general kind of creaky. That, and without having Fortitiude, Judah would get beat up alot by the DotB damage (which is why I needed Marty...). [ quoted text not captured ]

Michael Kelly wrote: "And the #1 answer is....ATTONEMENT Particularly on a well equiped minion." While Attonement certainly helps against a weenie horde bleed/vote deck, it doesn't really help much against a Rush deck, as the Attoned vampire will likely get killed the first combat he his in, and the Rush deck never minds getting intercepted anyway (only brough up because this is a Rush deck thread...) [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <35EC97B3...@lmco.com>, Quicksilver <michae...@lmco.com> wrote: >Jasper Phillips wrote: > >> In article <35EB722D...@math.wisc.edu>, >> James Hamblin <ham...@math.wisc.edu> wrote: >> > >> >I wanted to comment here about the utility of larger vampires in a rush >> >deck. I found at GenCon that there were a number of people who had >> >specific anti-weenie sentiment/strategies. One particular disruption >> >deck killed me because it was specifically designed to thwart little >> >vampires, of which my crypt mostly consisted. Also, larger vampires are >> >a little tougher, in that they can take a medium-sized hit and survive >> >to Taste and Decapitate. Since putting a number of vampires sized 5-7 >> >in my crypt (while only slightly increasing the avg. capacity) I've >> >found my deck is a lot more consistent. But, as always, YMMV. >> >> I'm curious. What specific anti weenie strategies do people use? The >> only thing I can really think of is obedience. > >And the #1 answer is....ATTONEMENT Hmmm. Atonement isn't much of a problem for a rush deck (which is the current context), since such a deck won't really give a damn whether it is blocked or not. A rush deck wants to get into combat, and cards that it's prey uses for intercept/untap are essentially wasted slots. [ quoted text not captured ]

PDB6 wrote: > > Michael Kelly wrote: > "And the #1 answer is....ATTONEMENT > > Particularly on a well equiped minion." > > While Attonement certainly helps against a weenie horde bleed/vote deck, it > doesn't really help much against a Rush deck, as the Attoned vampire will > likely get killed the first combat he his in, and the Rush deck never minds > getting intercepted anyway (only brough up because this is a Rush deck > thread...) > Of course, a !Ventrue intercept/pulse/dawn ops could use a little atonement (though I should read the card again - I forget if it has some anti-sabbat bias or not). The !Ventrue deck would naturally pick an obedience or FOR strategy to use in combat. Just a thought, Jaysen